Celebrating 120 Years of Music, Friendship and Harmony

Reflections on Cincinnati’s legacy in the founding of the Fraternity

As Jennifer Barnett (Phi Mu, Palos Verdes/South Bay Alumni) made plans to attend the American Choral Directors Association conference in February, she couldn’t pass up an opportunity to organize a meetup for members of Mu Phi Epsilon. The national ACDA conference was held in Cincinnati, the birthplace of the Fraternity. Jennifer compiled the following information and photos in celebration of Mu Phi Epsilon’s 120th anniversary.

“Meeting with other Mu Phis during the ACDA conference was great fun,” Barnett said. “We sang through ‘Our Triangle’ and I reflected on why a return to Cincinnati was so significant for our organization.”

Mu Phi Epsilon members meet up during the ACDA conference in Cincinnati in February.

Did You Know?

The Alpha chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon was founded on November 13, 1903, at the Cincinnati Metropolitan College of Music which was established in 1867.

In its first year, Alpha’s founding class consisted of 13 members and set forth many of the traditions and values that we uphold to this day, including but not limited to professional development, performance, research and community service. The College of Music of Cincinnati, a separate institution and later home to the Mu Omicron chapter, was founded in 1878 and was situated just south of the Cincinnati Music Hall. The College featured two music halls — The Odeon and the Lyceum, which sat 1,500 and 400 attendees respectively. In 1902, the day before the start of classes, an electrical short started a major fire that destroyed both concert halls as well as a number of surrounding classrooms, dormitories and administrative buildings.

Fortunately, the Cincinnati Music Hall next door was spared from the blaze. Determined to aid the students of the college, the citizens of Cincinnati completed reconstruction of the destroyed buildings the following year in 1903. The new buildings were smaller, but considerably more fireproof.

In 1930, the Metropolitan College of Music merged with the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. The College of Music of Cincinnati merged with the Conservatory in 1955.

The Mu Phi Epsilon Cincinnati Alumni chapter was chartered in 1914. At present, there are no active collegiate or alumni chapters in the city.

A Letter from Winthrop S. Sterling (1923)

Members of Mu Phi Epsilon, sisters, mothers and girls everywhere: Greetings sincere and best wishes without number for many happy returns of THE DAY, November 13, happier and more blessed for each and every one, each returning anniversary.

An anniversary or a birthday is a good time to stop and ponder for a time, “taking stock” as they say in business terms, and this means to look back over the “stock” already taken, and to look forward to that that shall be taken in, to make sure the balance shall be on the right side at the end of the year.

The early stock from which the beginning of Mu Phi started was splendid, and especially we should call attention to the one who was such a great, in fact the chief inspiration of Alpha in its earlier years of existence, Mrs. Dr. Fuqua, then Miss Elizabeth Mathis whose … splendid enthusiasm was the chief factor in giving Mu Phi a good start.

…

Let Mu Phi on this anniversary take courage and look forward to yet greater things, a greater number of blessings to give and thereby also receiving a greater number each year, so that all future generations of Mu Phi “will rise up and call you blessed.”

—Excerpt from a letter by Winthrop Smith Sterling, dean of the Metropolitan School of Music and co-founder of the Fraternity, that appeared in the November 1923 issue of the Triangle.